Booking air with Carnival

[abby1257]

Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of booking my airfare through Carnival.  I'm never done this and wonder whether it might  be a little cheaper?  or other pros, TIA

[klfrodo]

A little cheaper? Probably, But that in and of itself has a price that you may or may not see.

 

Cruise lines will offer to sell you air travel tickets from which they earn a commission. However, the price for those tickets and the terms and conditions for travel were made a year or 2 ago. The tickets you receive are NOT the exact same tickets that you would purchase directly from the airline. They may appear to be the same. In fact, 99% of the time, you may never know there was a difference. That is until you run into operational problems such as redirecting, rescheduling, flight cancellations, etc.

 

 I used Fly2Fun one time. I saved about $200 per ticket. My 5 hour travel day turned into a 14 hour travel day with 2 layovers. The return flights, the airline changed aircraft type, therefore all seats were reassigned. None of us were together. Since we were NOT the airlines customer, Carnival bought the tickets/Carnival was their customer, we were last on the priority list to get seat assignments.

 

The Fly2Fun marketing brochure makes you "think" you are guaranteed to get to the ship on time> The legal language in the Terms and Conditions state that there is no guarantee, only that they will do their best unless <insert restrictions>

[jsglow]

@klfrododid a good job.

 

I'm going to direct you over to a pinned thread in Cruise Air that explains these type of 'consolidator' reservations in great detail.  We've used them successfully for Europe and they can work great. But it's not like having a confirmed ticket (and 13 digit ticket #) DIRECTLY from the airline or via a TA directly in coordination with the airline. What you have is a 'reservation' via a pooled batch arranged by the consolidator, in this case the cruise company who likely negotiated for this batch long ago.

 

 

[abby1257]

Hmmm...oh boy....sounds like a hard NOT!...Thanks for the info..

[jsglow]

29 minutes ago, abby1257 said:

Hmmm...oh boy....sounds like a hard NOT!...Thanks for the info..

I can't imagine doing it domestically.  Internationally it CAN save you a bundle if you understand the hurdles.

 

Case in point.  We had cancelable F2F reservations for London for this August at around $800pp (with some challenging but not impossible connections) when booking with the airlines was in the $1200 range for months.  Just last week we were finally able to book non-stops to London at $800 directly with AA. Did that, paid for them, got our fully ticketed seats, and cancelled our F2F.  Worked out great. 

[nwcruiselover]

I have booked with Carnival’s Fly2Fun only once.  It turned out OK in the end, but I had many stressful days and nights worried about whether my ticketing would be done in time for the cruise.  I did get a good fare, but not sure it was worth the stress I went through.  I paid in full for the air along with my final payment, about 3 months prior to the cruise.  Supposedly the tickets would be issued about 2 months before the cruise.  I started getting worried when ticketing hadn’t been done 30 days before the cruise and started calling.  There is no way to speak directly with Fly2Fun, and everyone told me to just be patient.  Eventually my ticket was issued 2 weeks before the cruise.  This is a return from Europe after a TA cruise.  Never again will I use Fly2Fun.

[ninjacat123]

DH and I have Fly2Fun for our Oct 2023 cruise out of Rome.  So far, we can see our  booking using our Record Locator code in American Airline's App. We are flying in 4 days before our cruise and then flying out a day after.  I hope we don't run into any issues.

[sgttami]

I don't know but would like to hear what others say,

 

My Carnival cruises have only been out of NYC and Baltimore..(Driving distance)

 

It's been 6 years since I had to fly to cruise (not Carnival) and used free air miles for that!

[jsglow]

3 hours ago, nwcruiselover said:

I have booked with Carnival’s Fly2Fun only once.  It turned out OK in the end, but I had many stressful days and nights worried about whether my ticketing would be done in time for the cruise.  I did get a good fare, but not sure it was worth the stress I went through.  I paid in full for the air along with my final payment, about 3 months prior to the cruise.  Supposedly the tickets would be issued about 2 months before the cruise.  I started getting worried when ticketing hadn’t been done 30 days before the cruise and started calling.  There is no way to speak directly with Fly2Fun, and everyone told me to just be patient.  Eventually my ticket was issued 2 weeks before the cruise.  This is a return from Europe after a TA cruise.  Never again will I use Fly2Fun.

I can understand if you're an individual that gets stressed about the ticketing process. Something less than a month is pretty typical.  And last minutes changes are also something you need to roll with too. 

 

We made a strategic mistake last year by booking F2F: Milwaukee-Rome.  Out flight outbound was just fine... MKE-ORD-FCO, all on time. On the way back however, what was originally supposed to be FCO-YYZ-MKE got converted to FCO-YYZ-ORD-MKE.  Still no huge problem and not a huge surprise.  But what did end up happening is that our final leg puddle jumper got seriously delayed (and our luggage was checked).  While it still went very late that same night, United Airlines was super in recognizing our well over 24 hour ordeal and without any hesitation got us into a hotel overnight in Chicago at no charge along with some other pax facing similar ordeals. We just had zero left in the tank by that point and Customer Services was OUTSTANDING with the supervisor authorizing it on the spot.  Unfortunately they couldn't get us on another puddle jumper until 4 that next afternoon.  Anyway, we got home a day late.  And the flight to MKE took 16 minutes from wheels up to wheels down! 

 

Just another good story now. But this year we're flying to LHR from ORD. We've got a parksleepfly for like $130. Not getting stuck again!    

Edited April 12, 2023 by jsglow

[jsglow]

2 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

DH and I have Fly2Fun for our Oct 2023 cruise out of Rome.  So far, we can see our  booking using our Record Locator code in American Airline's App. We are flying in 4 days before our cruise and then flying out a day after.  I hope we don't run into any issues.

One of the things that's really smart is to give yourself a nice big cushion.  We also had 4 nights in Rome. Loved it.

[Saint Greg]

I wouldn’t bother with it domestic but for those expensive international flights it might be worth looking into.

[abby1257]

19 hours ago, sgttami said:

I don't know but would like to hear what others say,

 

My Carnival cruises have only been out of NYC and Baltimore..(Driving distance)

 

It's been 6 years since I had to fly to cruise (not Carnival) and used free air miles for that!

Hi Sgttami,  i see you cruise out of NYC...which airport would be easiest to fly into to get to the port...TIA

[sgttami]

36 minutes ago, abby1257 said:

Hi Sgttami,  i see you cruise out of NYC...which airport would be easiest to fly into to get to the port...TIA

I would go with Newark.  11 miles from the port and an easy taxi ride to Manhattan cruise terminal.

[MedCruise_2022]

We used Carnival's Fly2Fun for our Mediterranean Cruise from Rome to Lisbon in October 2022.

It turned out well: a) I chose the dates and flights we wanted - 4 days pre-cruise through Delta; 2 days post cruise through BA (from Lisbon - LHR) and AA (LHR-DFW); b) I could choose the seats for Delta and AA, but not for BA; c) the air fare rate was lower than if I booked myself; d) the air fare was "bundled" thus was only  paid during the final cruise fare payment.

Airlines' Record Locator was issued and I could find the flights and seat numbers on my AA and Delta portals, however as some posters have pointed out, the actual issuance of the actual ticket number was only about a month before the cruise. 

Over-all, our F2F to Europe turned out fine!. 

At this time, I am exploring F2F for our flight to Tampa (from DFW) for a Panama Canal Cruise (2024), I called Carnival Travel Services, and the airfare rate they are quoting is the same price I see at the AA website. I think I will  explore other airlines!
 

[vwrestler171]

I've booked with F2F a few times, but always ended up canceling.  Each time, I would have my preferred flights booked and paid for, then Carnival would change the flights, but blame the airline(Price on the flights went up before Carnival secured them) from direct flights to flights requiring a layover, adding hours to my flight.  I canceled and rebooked the exact same flights direct with the airline for the original price I paid Carnival.

 

Note, if you book a flexible option with Carnival, you can make changes up to 60 days before you cruise.

[ashkir]

Price I can find directly from Delta for LAX to FCO was $1200. Price I was able to find on Google Flights was $893. 
 

Carnival’s price? $321. 
 

I saved a ton.